Josh Mack blogging at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts, and occasionally on; bicycles, politics, Brooklyn, parenting, crafts, and good reading. Currently helping to build a new NYC neighborhood news site - nearsay.com, that celebrates the voices that make our city. Subscribe to the daily newsletter it gives you what you need to know.

April 30, 2007

Short attention span theater with Sony cutting Charlie's Angels into small bits. A friend of mine created some short versions of the A-Team which were very funny but he thought that the idea would run into the rights issues that Sony being the studio versus the network seems to be avoiding. Still the music rights could jump up and bite them. Anytime you take something and cut it into say 403 new products everyone wants a cut.

April 25, 2007

I've been creating a Google Map of our trip up the coast. I really love MyMaps. My only real complaint is that I can't reorder the placemarks to make a linear account of our drive but no matter you can click on the placemarks if you want to start at the beginning.

I've also just realized that you can search for addresses and then add those to your map. I expect this trip log to grow.

The text of a speech Rham Emanuel gave today at The Brookings Institution " it's a broad indictment of the Bush administration that argues that
all-pervasive partisanship, not incompetence, is the common thread
linking all of the administration's manifold failings." (via Talking Points Memo)

April 22, 2007

It seems in order to celebrate Earth Day it is necessary to enlist a lot of cars, trucks, large plastic play areas, electronic equipment, and a number of extra park employees to route joggers and cyclists around the cars. Arghh.

Earlier in the week, I bought carbon offsets for our recent trip to California (which will soon be online as a Google MyMap), my car, and our apartment from Terrapass. I really like the concept and the service. They have several calculators which let you know how much carbon dioxide you are putting out and then recommend plans to offset it. I feel good about this and it makes sense to do something on a personal level until market forces take hold for things much bigger. Here is a really nice post from have fun do good that explains what carbon offsets are and how to judge the different companies vying to help you help the planet.

April 19, 2007

Back from vacation, where I was offline and unable to share the amazing scenery we drove through on our Rt 1 road trip from LA to SF. This is a view from Big Sur. I'm putting together a mymaps version with some key stops.

April 06, 2007

Link to video from last Tuesday's NY Tech Meetup. I had to miss it because of a meeting with my landlady. While we may have a new stove, oven, and backyard fence coming I was still sorry to miss it. So thanks to Rich for sending me the link. One note though that this only seems to work on a IE on a PC. I want to see the flickrcash, and collegewiki apps. There was also a great mashup from DayLife. As a inside highlight for those who know and love him, Mark Graham was visiting from CA and sure enough as is his way, he asked the first question.

This morning Google launched MyMaps and
with typical blogospheric drama (which I adore) predictions of the fall
of mash-ups were made. Here's my take...

This kind of disruption was inevitable. There is a rapidly growing geospatial web and they have in many ways elevated the importance of it.

While no entrepreneur is excited about potentially competing with
Google, it had to happen. This is an indicator of something very
interesting in new kinds of collaborative business models. For example;
apis in and out and remixing. There are a number of friend/foe
relationships that spring up when you have alliances and markets with
rapidly evolving needs. Our business will be disrupted too in some ways
but it was time.

We needed a new conversation to get us beyond the limiting concept
of mash-ups. A year ago many of our services looked the same but now
you see differentiation start to emerge. As well Google has (for now)
carved a small/clear piece of this and hasn't entered into the
community aspects. For now, we need to count ourselves among the Google
friend/foes which are rapidly increasing!

I have a small one as well. It won't let you embed audio or video (at least I can't figure out how). I signed up with Hipcast this morning so I could create a tour of the Tenderloin putting up the CityReads tracks we recorded three years ago, but it won't let me embed their player.

April 04, 2007

Like a rare solar eclipse a confluence of events has caused alternate street parking in NY to be suspended for crucial days allowing me to find a spot that will be good for the next two weeks. The NYT has a nice article about it.

NYT obituary of Abe Colman age 101, a professional wrestler, known as the Hebrew Hercules. 5'3" 200+ pounds, drop kick copied from kangeroos. At his 100th birthday party, The Queens Chronicle said that a nephew asked him if he wanted to wrestle, “Get my tights and jockstrap,” the Hebrew Hercules growled.